My 2 year old hangs out in the kitchen area while my older girls homeschool in the mornings. He's always looking for ways to jump in and play, too. I'm a huge learning-through-play advocate and so it's usually very easy to engage him in something that he'll not only love "playing" with, but will also encourage learning along the way.
I keep containers (from the Dollar Store) stocked with different knick-knacks (also from the Dollar Store). One of them is a pom pom tub. I do add pom poms to the free art bucket for gluing or whatever, but this tub is specifically used for activities, counters, patterning, etc.
For this activity, I just pulled out an extra yellow basket, and a couple different sized spoons. I sat and played with him for a few minutes, showing him how I could scoop some up with my spoon and move them to another bucket. It didn't take long before he decided that it looked like fun, too, and he jumped in trying out different spoons and moving them from different buckets.
This is a great way to encourage fine motor skill development. Providing different spoons allows them to experiment and try it in various ways. Plus, it's fun! After a few minutes, the pom poms usually end up scattered in every which way, but he's a great cleaner and will usually pick them right up when he knows I have another activity for him coming.
Sometimes I will also provide an egg carton, and place one or two of each color pom pom in each spot and see if he sorts them out (he usually catches on).
What other fun things do you like to do with pom poms?
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